


Mutually Satisfying Weirdness

by tielan



Category: Calvin & Hobbes
Genre: Bisexuality, F/M, Falling In Love, Friendship/Love, Gen, Growing Up, M/M, Queer Themes, we're a little bit different
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-01
Updated: 2014-09-01
Packaged: 2018-02-15 19:16:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2240343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tielan/pseuds/tielan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Susie rolls her eyes. “Newsflash, Calvin: you’ve always been weird. Who you like to kiss has nothing to do with that.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mutually Satisfying Weirdness

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Merfilly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/gifts).



“Well, champ, looks like someone got a good fist in.”

Calvin scowls down at his plate of indeterminate meat and tasteless vegetables. “Why does our society insist on glorifying violence?”

“Because,” Dad says as he spears a carrot with his fork with the relish of an axe-murderer lopping off a victim’s head, “it’s entertaining, and we’re all really just cavemen at heart. And that’s a really good rainbow, too. All the colors.”

Mom studies him for a moment. “How did you get the shiner anyway?”

“Fighting off aliens from the planet Zorg?”

“Calvin.”

He huffs, embarrassed. “It was Susie.”

Anyone who coined the phrase ‘hits like a girl’ obviously never met Susie Derkins.

 ~o~ 

“I guess you’re going to say _I told you so_.”

Hobbes yawns and curls up at the foot of the bed. “I don’t have to. Tigers are always right.”

 

* * *

 

The first time he falls in love – really in love – he doesn’t know it until much later.

It’s the sly smile under too-long brown hair, sharp features made sharper by the pointed grin. It’s the easy saunter across the grass, careless of the mammoth hulks of the jocks who watch him pass like dogs eyeing a cat who’s walking in their territory.

It’s the way he answers the teachers, composed and clever even when he’s in trouble.

“Deke,” he says as they pause outside detention.

“Calvin.”

“Klein? Or John?”

Most people think it’s the first; few have heard of the second.

Calvin grins.

  ~o~ 

Hobbes stretches out on the shelf. “ _Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness_? What kind of name is that for music?”

“It’s not just music, it’s _art_.”

 

* * *

 

 

The rambling hills of Calvin’s childhood have turned into ungainly suburbia, but here and there are little pockets of wilderness.

Sprawled in the overgrown grasses of a plot slated for housing development, Calvin stares up at the skies and silently picks out clouds shapes in his head while Deke makes grass whistles, then tickles Calvin with the stalks.

“Stop that.”

“Make me!”

It feels comfortable to tussle with Deke, laughing and gasping, grabbing and struggling, to be bested and pinned back into the grass. To look Deke in the eye, close enough to taste the other guy’s breath, to see the flecks of green in the blue eyes, to feel the catch of breath in his lungs – or is that Calvin’s lungs?

The kiss seems like the most natural thing in the world.

  ~o~ 

_I’m gay. I kissed Deke. Or he kissed me. I’m gay. I like guys._ The thought chases around his head like the fights he had with Hobbes – over and over and round and bump and thump and sprawl.

Hobbes snores on the mat, comfortably oblivious to Calvin’s revelation.

 

* * *

 

 

There’s a moderate stir at school when Calvin and Deke are spotted holding hands at the movies.

“People are stupid,” Calvin grumbles at Deke when the kids point and mutter. “As though it matters.”

“I don’t know, Cal.” Deke shoves his hands in his jacket and keeps his head down. “Appearances matter sometimes.”

As Calvin finds out when Deke’s dad nearly bashes on the door of Calvin’s house one evening, bellowing obscenities that make Dad blanch. The word ‘faggot’ is used at least twice, along with ‘filthy ponce’, ‘nancy-boy’, and ‘catamite’.

Then Mom takes the frypan off the hook and goes to answer the door.

“Would she really...?”

Dad winces. “I’d better make sure she doesn’t.”

It’s not pretty. There’s shouting from all sides, Mom doesn’t brain anyone, but the police get called anyway.

It’s only after Deke’s dad has been led away, and the avid gazes of the neighbours blocked by the close of the front door that Mom drops the pan on the front mat, slides down the back of the door and starts sobbing.

  ~o~ 

“I didn’t _ask_ to fall in love with Deke,” Calvin flops down on his bed, frustrated. “She made it sound like I was doing it deliberately!”

“You know, I’ve never actually heard the word ‘catamite’ used before,” Hobbes says thoughtfully.

 

* * *

 

 

Deke doesn’t exactly avoid Calvin after that, but things are uncomfortable between them. It doesn’t help that Deke starts to fall in with a ‘normal’ crowd of people – namely, not-gay – and Calvin’s left alone and on the outside of the social groups at school.

Nothing new.

But it stings more now, because for a while he had someone else who was like him. A little different. A little _too_ different to fit in. And the hanging laughter in the air after he walks by Deke and Deke’s new friends burns his insides like he’s swallowed his chemistry experiment.

“Well, you’re just a little blond raincloud,” Susie observes one afternoon when their paths cross on the way home.

“Aren’t you supposed to be in ballet or something?”

“Don’t be so sexist. It’s baseball. And you’re avoiding the question.”

“If you’d _asked_ a question I’d be avoiding it.”

Her braid lashes like a cat’s tail. “Fine. What’s eating you? Is it Deke? You’re well rid of that asshole.”

“Don’t talk about Deke like that.”

“Why not? He _was_ an asshole. He laughed in Jaime’s face when she asked if he wanted to partner her for AP Chem.”

Calvin scowls at the pavement. “But he’s gay.”

“It was AP Chem,” is Susie’s retort, “not a date!”

“Do you have a reply for everything?”

“Everything that matters.”

  ~o~ 

“It’s all very well for Susie,” Calvin fumes that night. “She’s _normal_.”

Hobbes props his head up on his paw and inspects the claws of his other paw. “You do know that normal is relative for humans?”

 

* * *

 

Things don’t get better, but at least they don’t get worse.

He eases out of being in love with Deke. Sort of. He still feels a pang when he and Deke cross paths, especially when Deke has his arm draped over one girl or another, but it’s not that raw, tearing sensation in his belly, like he’s swallowed alien eggs and they’re hatching inside his guts, eating him from the inside out.

Later – much later, Calvin realises he was one of the lucky ones.

There’s a period when he’s half-expecting Moe and Co to start using him as a punching bag. Only Moe comes down with an unexpected case of broken legs, and by the time he’s healed enough to take a decent swing at Calvin, he doesn’t seem to think it’s worth the effort.

Most kids at school just seem to think it’s him.

“Oh, for God’s sake get over yourself, Calvin,” Susie says one day on the walk home. “Or should I call you ‘Spaceman Spiff’?”

“That was way back in first grade!”

“Yeah, and in second grade you said your mom caught you bugs for lunch! And in third grade you tried to tell me that the principal was an alien spy! All of which should give you an idea of just how weird your rabbit hole goes!” Susie prods him with her baseball bat, right in the ribs.

He squawks and grabs the bat and wrestles it out of her hands and holds it out of her reach. He’s grown taller than her in the last year, and she can’t—

“Urk!”

Susie takes her bat back and bops him – lightly – on the head with it. “Serves you right for stealing my bat!”

“Swear to God, Derkins,” he gasps, “you’re a domestic violence suit waiting to happen.”

But she waits for him to stand upright before speaking again. “Don’t be an idiot, Calvin. Who you like to kiss has nothing to do with how weird you are.”

  ~o~ 

“...and then I wanted to kiss her. Which, what the fuck, because...I kissed Deke and I liked that. So I’m gay, right? But all I could think was that I wanted to kiss Susie. Again. While she was holding a baseball bat! So what does that make me?”

Hobbes grins. “A masochist?”

 

* * *

 

Calvin figured prom would be full of idiots and he wasn’t wrong.

“But entertaining idiots,” Susie notes when she comes off the dance floor and finds him still sitting at the table with the GameBoy Geeks. “Look, Calvin, just relax. Party like it’s 1999, which, oh, wow, it _is_!”

He balances a piece of ice on a dessert spoon. “Why did I let you talk me into this?”

“I don’t know. Why _did_ you let me talk you into this?” She grins. “Come on, Calvin. Nobody will notice how weird you are on the dance floor. I mean, look at the way Vicky Edgehill is dancing – the only _possible_ explanation is alien possession.”

“Or she might just be a really bad dancer.”

“Ugh. I give up. And don’t even _think_ of catapulting that ice at me!”

In response, he scoops the ice into his mouth and grins through the chilly crunch. “Alien possession?”

“At least.”

“All right,” he says, stripping off his jacket. “I’m bad at dancing, but alien possession I can do.”

So he goes out on the dance floor and dances like he’s possessed by aliens – or six again, and grooving with Hobbes to Dad’s old Lynyrd Skynyrd LPs. And Susie dances with him until one of her friends drags her off to deal with someone throwing up. Calvin thinks about heading back to the table, but then someone else’s date comes along and grins and matches Calvin’s moves.

He’s not a bad dancer – good rhythm, good moves – and he’s not bad looking while he’s at it.

He’s not a bad kisser, either, down in the shadows beneath the old elm tree.

  ~o~ 

“Someone had a good time,” Hobbes notes.

Calvin throws himself down on his bed, dishevelled and rumpled, but satisfied. Very _very_ satisfied. “You have no idea.”

 

* * *

 

 

“Well, I guess you were a decent investment after all,” Dad says when Calvin brings home his first car, bought from the money he’s earning in his web design business. “So now that you’re earning, you’ll be paying your mom and I rent.”

“Your parenting polls just skydived.”

“Unfortunately for you, the voting was held before you were born and it’s a lifetime election.” Dad smirks and pushes his glasses up.

“Even if I get caught necking a guy in the back seat?”

“Necking’s illegal these days? Sure are enough kids doing it in public.” Dad scratches a hand through his hair, grimacing as his fingers brush over the thinning patch on his head. “I think we’ve grown accustomed to the idea that we’re not going to get grandkids from you.”

“Adoption.”

“Possible. But we were thinking the more usual way. Although your mom still has hopes that it’s all a mistake.”

“It’s not.” Calvin’s mostly dealt with the way his parents are dealing with his orientation. At least Mom doesn’t bring it up all the time. Or cry about it.

“We’re working on that – on our expectations, that is, not on changing your mind. Look, you were always a terror and a nightmare, and I’m kind of amazed you survived to become an adult—”

“Gee, Dad, thanks.”

“—but then, you’ve always been weird.”

It’s not what Calvin expected. He turns; the twinkle in Dad’s eye isn’t _un_ expected, which is why Calvin doesn’t feel hurt – just miffed. Besides, didn’t Susie say pretty much the same thing back in high school?

“Have I ever mentioned the lifetime of headshrinking involved in being related to you?”

“Hey, you got your sense of humor from somewhere.”

“And here I was hoping it was my real dad.”

“Hah,” his dad slaps him on the shoulder. “Keep hoping.”

  ~o~ 

“I like it,” Hobbes says from his perch in the windowsill. “Sunny.”

Calvin contemplates folding up the last cardboard box and tossing it out with the others; but he can’t quite bring himself to do it. He settles for shoving it under the coffee table in the corner, the scrawled ‘ _TRANSMOGRIFIER_ ’ almost hidden from sight.

 

* * *

 

 

Turning away from the market stall, Calvin nearly collides with the girl carrying a tray of coffees.

“Watch where you’re going, fucktard!”

He doesn’t know what it is - the tone of her voice, maybe, the way the weak sunshine gleams off the dark bob, the briefest scent of something that makes him think of summer and lemonade stands and winter and snowball fights and blunt honesty and a baseball bat.

There’s no stopping his grin. “Still a lawsuit waiting to happen, Derkins!”

“Calvin?” Susie’s eyes widen. “Holy shit, of all the markets in all the cities of the world...”

She leans in and pecks him on the cheek – an unthinking brush of her lips, lightning fast. Calvin blinks, surprised, but manages to ask, “What’s with the hair?”

“The hair? Oh!” She tugs the blue lock of hair forward and studies it, dangly bead earrings swinging by her shoulders. “Testing. I’m thinking of going mermaid.”

“Mermaid?”

“Blue hair, mermaid, it’s a thing.” She hefts the tray of coffees and grabs his hand. “Come on. I have to deliver these to the stall, but we can catch up afterwards…”

Calvin has no idea why he lets her drag him along. As it is, his brain is trying to catch up and failing badly. Susie Derkins. Looking…well, like a hippie. But in a good way – dangly earrings, long bead, colourful scarf threaded through the beltloops of her cargo pants – it suits her.

‘The stall’ is one of the new-age-ish ones, full of giggly girls and crystals and beads and dreamy Celtic-pipe-choral music, and Susie delivers the coffee to the owners, takes one for herself. “I’m going to catch up with Calvin. Text if you need me.”

One of the girls leans over and kisses her on the mouth. Calvin’s pretty sure tongue is involved.

It takes an effort to tear his eyes away.

  ~o~ 

“Susie Derkins,” Hobbes muses. “She gave really good tea parties.”

“Apparently she gives really good tongue, too,” Calvin says and spends a few minutes thinking about Susie’s tongue in his mouth.

 

* * *

 

 

“It’s called _bisexual_ , Calvin.” Susie sips her coffee – the coffee she got for free after flirting with the guy at the register. Which caused Calvin all kinds of confusion because, hello, _girlfriend_? “It means I like girls _and_ guys. Not necessarily at the same time. Why am I even telling the gay guy about this? I mean, you should know all about being queer!”

“I’m not queer.” Whatever that means. “I’m gay.”

Susie rolls her eyes. “Gay is basically a subset of queer. ‘Queer’ as a term covers all kind of non-heteronormative sexualities.”

In spite of the changes in her, Calvin finds it kind of comforting that she still manages to make it sound like he’s an idiot in need of a baseball bat bump to the head. The core of Susie Derkins remains unchanged by the trappings.

“So, basically, weird.”

“Differently normal,” she counters.

“Drunk the politically correct Kool-Aid?”

“If by, ‘politically correct’ you mean ‘making an effort to label people who don’t fit the norm in an inoffensive way’ then, yeah..”

Her absolute certainty is amusing. And kind of intriguing. Because if he’s thought about Susie in the last five years since they left school, it’s been in some kind of office job, all suited and made up, in heels that show off the muscular length of her tanned legs…

Calvin hauls that thought back before it gets too far.

He’s gay, right? Only he found watching Susie kiss her girlfriend kind of hot – and a bit uncomfortable – and that’s a heterosexual guy thing. Or, at least, he thinks of it as a heterosexual guy thing, and he’s never been with a woman, although he notices them. Some of them – the dark-haired ones who know exactly what they want and aren’t behindhand about saying it.

  ~o~ 

“I think I’m bisexual. Or possibly Susie-sexual,” he concludes to Hobbes that night. “Maybe.”

"Doesn’t matter to me." Hobbes rolls over and yawns, his mouth full of sharp, ivory teeth. "You all taste the same, anyway."

 

* * *

 

As it turns out, Susie gives _really_ good tongue.

Calvin gives back as good as he gets. At least, he presumes it’s pretty good because otherwise Susie wouldn’t be trying to crawl into his clothes halfway up the stairs to her bedroom.

“You still have your bedroom here? My parents sold my bed the year after I moved out.”

“You moved out,” Susie mutters between kisses as she navigates the stairs backwards. “I went to college. It’s different.”

There’s a moment. She’s fumbled the door open and he’s kicked it shut, and they’re on her bed practically dry-humping each other. Something catches Calvin’s eye.

“Wait, stop. Fuck,” he breathes when she bites his throat hard enough that the sensation crawls down his spine, “Susie, fuck, no, stop. This is weird.”

She rolls her eyes. “Just go with the weirdness, Calvin.”

“I can’t,” he says. “Not when Mr. Buns is judging me.”

“What?”

He indicates the worn little stuffed bunny tucked into a corner of the bookcase, the black button eyes boring into him. “Mr. Buns is judging me.”

Susie tilts her head back to look at her old childhood toy. She stares for a few moments, then closes her eyes. It looks like she’s counting to ten. Then her mouth curves and she starts to shake – laughter, Calvin thinks. A few seconds later, she’s laughing loud enough to wake her parents – if her parents were home, which they’re not.

Susie’s shirt front is open and his thigh is wedged in her cleft, denim to denim, over hot soft flesh – and _that’s_ going to be interesting considering he’s only ever had guys before, but he’s game to learn – and, hot as it all is, Calvin can’t help grinning down at her, even in the face of Mr. Bun’s displeasure.

“You’re really going to have an issue with Mr. Buns watching us have sex?”

“Even Hobbes has to stay on the shelf in the study,” Calvin points out.

“And you’ve never had—Don’t answer that, actually.” Susie rolls him off and climbs to her feet, crossing over to the bookcase. “Okay, Mr. Buns. I’m afraid it’s the hallway bookcase for you tonight. Because Calvin’s such a prude.”

“Am not!” When she tilts her head at him, he shrugs. “I just try not to offend the tender sensibilities of childhood toys.”

  ~o~ 

From his position on the hallway bookcase, Mr. Buns scowls at the closed door of Susie’s room.

_“We’re all a little weird._  
 _And life is a little weird._  
 _And when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours,_  
 _we join up with them and fall into mutually satisfying weirdness_  
 _— and call it love - true love.”_

~ Robert Fulghum, True Love ~


End file.
